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Travelers' Official Guide

Description

The National Railway Publication Company in New York issued this Travelers’ Official Guide, a monthly periodical listing passenger timetables for railroads and steamships, in December 1883. The cover showed the new zoned times that would govern railway travel, and inside were new standardized time tables.

On November 18, 1883, local times across North America – determined by the position of the sun overhead – were consolidated into standardized time zones. Each zone had a uniform time within its boundaries. At the request of the railroads, William F. Allen, publisher of the Guide, devised the plan. The railroads implemented the change for their own benefit and to avoid government intervention in operations. But gradually, despite scattered resistance, standard time became the way just about everyone kept time.

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